Simply Scandalous Page 11

  Cynthia looked up and saw her eldest brother walking toward them from the house. "Horatio?" she said in some surprise.

  Juliet pinched her arm. "Yes, you goose! Don't you know your brother is the most handsome man in London?"

  Cynthia laughed. "To me, he is simply Horatio. Do you not think his mustache rather too absurd? Whoever heard of a seafaring man with a mustache and whiskers?"

  "I think they become him very well," said Juliet, smiling at the Captain. "Now, a mustache on Ginger-that would be too absurd!"

  "You must not call his lordship Ginger!" cried Cynthia.

  "Indeed, you must not, Juliet," Horatio, who had heard this remark, said sternly. "It implies an intimacy that, I trust, does not exist!"

  Juliet blushed. "No, indeed, Cousin," she murmured. "I assure you it implies only my contempt for the man."

  "When I heard he had taken rooms at the Tudor Rose, I was appalled," said Horatio. "Now I discover he has been here, imposing himself on my pretty cousin."

  Juliet, accustomed to his gallantry, did not blush at the compliment but laughed. "Rather his lordship has imposed upon your father's shepherdesses!"

  "Was that not your doing, Juliet?" inquired Horatio with a frown, for he had heard from his father the tale of the playful basket tossing.

  Juliet hurriedly explained. "I could not allow your father to form any ill ideas about his Grace of Auckland, who really is an honorable old gentleman."

  "Then ... Lord Swale has not proposed to you?" Horatio seemed relieved.

  "Heavens, no!" said Juliet, laughing.

  "I expect the offer of a coronet would be difficult for any young lady to refuse," Horatio said thoughtfully.

  "Despite my youth," Juliet replied teasingly, "I believe I could withstand the temptation. He really is the most disagreeable man. He shouted at me until my ears rang; he flattered me with the sobriquet of `harpy'; he told me how delighted he would be to break my neck and how he wished I were a man; then he topped it off by snatching my basket from my hands and pitching it across the room! I wish he had proposed to me. Then you would see how quickly I could send him away with a flea in his ear! Not," she could not help adding, "that he didn't arrive with a flea in his ear."

  "What has he come for?" Horatio wondered. "That he would dare show his face-"

  'Juliet is convinced he did no harm to Cousin Cary," Cynthia broke in. "You must not think him such a villain as that, though he does have a frightful temper."

  Horatio smiled grimly. "And he came here to swear his innocence, did he? I say, that's a bit oily, isn't it?"

  "His lordship has many faults," said Juliet, "but being oily isn't one of them. He resolutely refused to swear to me he was innocent, which I thought rather well of him."

  "Indeed?" said Horatio. "Then he has convinced you he is innocent."

  "He did convince me," Juliet admitted. "What's more, he thinks he knows who did do it."

  "Who?" Horatio demanded. "Do you mean to say he actually accused someone?"

  "Yes," said Juliet, recalling just in time that Lord Redfylde was Horatio's patron. To spare him pain, she said quickly, "You will forgive me if I do not repeat his accusation. There really is no proof, you see."

  "Then it does you credit not to repeat it, Cousin," said Horatio warmly. "What sort of fellow is this Swale to accuse someone without proof?"

  "He is the very worst sort," Juliet told him confidently. "If you will excuse me, Cousin, I should write to my brother Sir Benedict. I should ask him what he knows about this strange matter. If I hurry, I can send it by the afternoon post."

  Horatio caught her arm. "If the Marquess of Swale has not come to make love to you, Cousin Juliet, and he has not come to swear his innocence, why is he come to Hertfordshire?"

  Juliet flushed. Under no circumstances could she tell her cousin that Swale had come to satisfy himself that she had no designs upon his aged father. "You had better ask Ginger that," she said. "Lord Swale, I mean."

  Horatio was given an early opportunity for doing so when the Marquess, in defiance of Miss Wayborn, arrived at the Vicarage promptly at six o'clock, looking like he meant to eat. Juliet was astonished when he walked into the drawing room where she and Cynthia were sorting fragments of china plates and figurines into their respective piles. The parlormaid, Mary, sketched a curtsey and announced belatedly, "My lord, the Marquess of Swale! "

  "Very good, Mary," Swale congratulated her, smiling so amiably that Mary blushed and Juliet scoffed indignantly.

  "What are you doing here?" she demanded, getting to her feet.

  "Miss Cary," he said warmly, bending over Cynthia's hand. "My dear child, you look perfectly charming this evening."

  "How very good of you to come after all, my lord," Cynthia whispered, trembling. "If you will-Oh!" She broke off in confusion as he pressed his lips to the back of her hand. "If your lordship will please excuse me," she hurried on, "I do not suppose my mother knows you are coming."

  "But why should she not, my dear child?" Swale inquired pleasantly, still holding her hand. "Your father graciously has asked me to dine, and I graciously have condescended to be fed."

  "Let her alone, you monster," Juliet said coldly. He turned to her, and Cynthia vanished from the room in a flurry of pink muslin. "I told you you're not welcome here."

  He looked at her. She had changed into a fitted gown of Tuscan red cambric for dinner. The short, tight sleeves and the deep decollete were trimmed with rows of silky golden fringe that shimmered provocatively with her slightest movement. The cut and color suited her dark hair and brought out the dusky gypsy tint of her skin, which he had not noticed before. A heavy gold Etruscan-style bracelet worn above the elbow of her right arm was her only ornament. While not as pretty as her elfin cousin, she was definitely a handsome girl. He wondered, with a flash of annoyance, if she had chosen that dress especially to please her cousin Captain Cary.

  Carefully averting his eyes from the smooth round tops of her breasts, he paused at the mantelpiece and stooped down to pat the spaniel curled up in its basket. "If one only went where one was welcome, Miss Wayborn, one would never go out," he told her gravely.

  "Well, you had jolly well better behave yourself," she said. "Don't you dare play the overweening aristocrat here. You will eat everything put in front of you, and you will like it, sir. And you will tell Mrs. Cary it is the best roast mutton you ever had in your whole life, or I shall kick you under the table."

  "As long as it is not dressed as lamb," he returned coldly, "I like mutton above all things. Except possibly cheese. Also rabbit pie."

  "Cheese! Rabbit pie!" Her lip curled in distaste.

  "Don't you like rabbit pie?" he inquired innocently.

  "I have certainly never eaten it!" she snapped.

  "To say the truth, it is only good with a tankard of ale," he admitted with a sigh.

  'Well, there's no ale or rabbit pie here," she said impatiently. "So you had better go back to your room at the Rose. And you had better not walk out on the Sprigges without paying your bill."

  He squatted down to scratch the dog behind the ears. Her skirts, he noticed, were fashionably short, and they were trimmed with more of that seductively swaying silky fringe. Her slim ankles were clad in ruinously expensive white silk stockings, and on her feet were high-heeled slippers, the velvet tongues of which were threaded into little heart-shaped diamond buckles. Rather overdressed, he decided, for dinner at a small country vicarage.

  The dog he was petting suddenly whimpered, startling him. As he bent down to look at the spaniel's paw, the animal cringed.

  "Get away from him," Juliet said angrily, prodding him with the pointed toe of her slipper. "Can't you see you're frightening him?"

  "Can't you see he's got something stuck in his paw?" he retorted.

  "Oh!" she said, kneeling down to look.

  Swale spoke gently to the dog, and gradually, the animal allowed him to touch his front paw. "What's his name?"

  "Sailor," she an
swered. "It looks like a sliver of china," she added, bending her head over the dog. One long, dark curl fell across her shoulder, following the curve of her breast and disappearing like a snake into her cleavage. "He must have gotten into the room before the pieces were all swept up, poor thing."

  "It is my fault then, Sailor," he said softly. "Go and fetch me tongs or something, can't you?" he told the girl curtly. "And something to wash the wound. And a bit of bandage."

  They were joined at this moment by Captain Cary. Juliet performed the introductions hurriedly. "Horatio, Sailor is hurt!" she cried, rushing from the room.

  Swale looked the other man over with a critical eye as he continued to stroke the spaniel's head. The Captain was not so very handsome, he told himself. And the fungus on the upper lip-that was hardly the height of fashion. Quite unlike his own magnificent sideburns, which plunged in fiery splendor down the length of his jaw. Had the Wayborn truly decked herself in golden fringe and diamond buckles for this pretty coxcomb?

  "How do you do, my lord?" said Horatio, bowing correctly. "What brings your lordship to our little village? Besides the practice of veterinary medicine?"

  Swale could scarcely admit that he had come there to break the heart of Miss Juliet Wayborn. He fell back on the excuse he had used at the Tudor Rose. "I am looking for a small country place convenient to London," he said as Juliet returned with the necessary items tucked into a small enamel basin. "I understand that Mr. Cary Wayborn owns Tanglewood Manor. It sounds just the thing."

  Juliet blinked at him in surprise.

  "Tanglewood is not for sale, my lord," Captain Cary said.

  "Indeed, it is not," said Juliet, finding her tongue. "It was my mother's girlhood home. I should die before I see it leave the family. My brother will never sell you Tanglewood." She knelt down beside him at the hearth and gave him the tweezers.

  "Oh?" said Swale. Carefully, he removed the shard from the soft pad of the dog's paw while Juliet held the poor animal still. "I heard at the inn that Mr. Wayborn does not concern himself much with the place. Neglects it, one might say."

  Juliet flushed hotly. "How dare you!" she said, keeping her voice hushed for Sailor's sake. "When my brother marries, I expect he will settle there. In any case, what business is it of yours?"

  'Why, none," he said mildly. "If it is not for sale, even my enterprising mind cannot tell how I may buy it, so there I must leave the matter. There are other places. I am not one of these overweening aristocrats, my dear Miss Wayborn."

  He finished cleaning the spaniel's paw and watched asJuliet wrapped it in a bandage. "Your finger, my lord," she said, and he thought he detected a softening in her wide gray eyes. Or was she playing the demure little angel to catch Captain Cary's heart?

  "What about my finger?"

  "If you could just put it there for the knot? It needs to be good and tight." He obliged, and she pulled the ends of the knot tight over his fingertip. "You can pull it out now," she said gently, almost shyly, but in the next moment, she turned to the dog. "There now, Sailor. Next time, tell us when you are hurt." And she left the room to put away her basin.

  Dinner was not the simple mutton affair that Juliet had led Swale to anticipate. The Vicar prided himself on a good table, and Mrs. Cary, without any pretensions to elegance, provided it. Dr. Cary was quite shocked when Swale said carelessly, "Oh, do not throw away your claret on me, sir. I don't object to Madeira."

  Mrs. Cary, thinking that Madeira must be the height of sophistication if Lord Swale preferred it, silently berated herself for all the Anjou, Beaujolais, and Amontillado upon which she had squandered her husband's money.

  "Let me assure your lordship," Horatio said dryly, "that we do." He watched with his lip curled as Swale swilled the fine wine and smacked his lips.

  For his part, Swale watched with a sneer as Captain Cary mixed the ladies' wine with water. Juliet, who knew that his scorn was directed chiefly at her, glared at him.

  As she had ordered him, he ate everything put in front of him-loudly. He slurped his soup, then picked up his bowl in his hands to drink the dregs. He wolfed down the next two courses greedily, either swallowing his food whole or chomping it lustily, all the while moaning and rolling his eyes in exaggerated delight. Anything that fell from his plate was fed to the dog under the table. He twice spilled his wine, apologized profusely, and begged for more. His snowy neckcloth and waistcoat were soon speckled with crumbs and gravy, and he licked his greasy fingers with unprecedented enthusiasm.

  Cynthia and her parents watched him almost in disbelief, neglecting their own plates. Horatio turned away in disgust. Juliet, well aware that he was attempting to provoke her, pretended not to notice, but when he actually asked Mrs. Cary for a little honey to make his peas stick to his knife, she could take no more.

  "Carrots!" she said sharply.

  He frowned at her. "What did you call me?"

  "Why nothing, my lord." She smiled innocently as she held up a pretty celadon bowl full ofjulienned carrots. "May I offer you some carrots? A little specialty of mine. I glazed them myself with ginger and ... oh, all sorts of good things. May I serve you, my lord?" She was already on her feet. "It would be such an honor if you would tell me what you think. You are obviously an authority on food."

  He leaned back from the table and patted his belly lovingly. "Serve away, Miss Wayborn, and I'll give you my honest opinion," he said magnanimously.

  She came around the table and set the bowl on the sideboard behind his back. "I think you'll find it's rather a special dish, my lord," she said cheerfully, adding liberal amounts of black pepper and brandy to the innocent carrots. In the drawer she found the old brass candlelighter.

  Smiling sweetly, she set the dish before him, then set it ablaze just as he leaned forward to begin shoveling it down.

  As the brandy ignited, a tall flame leaped from the bowl, causing Mrs. Cary to shriek in dismay. The Marquess of Swale nearly fell over backward in his chair, the tips of his precious sideburns sizzling. In the pretty celadon bowl, the flame petered out, leaving behind a glistening burnt orange mass.

  "I find that a little brandy makes a marvelous foil for the ginger," Juliet said serenely, returning to her seat. "Unless my lord objects, I shall call it carottes flambeaux a la Swale. "

  `Juliet!" Horatio rebuked her as Cynthia tried desperately not to giggle. "How could you? You might have injured his lordship!"

  Swale spared him a look of scorn. "Nonsense," he said, forcing himself to smile at the gray-eyed pyromaniac who was now seated across from him with a look of triumph pasted on her patrician face. He picked up his fork. "Yum, yum. Looks absolutely delicious!" he commented while stretching out his foot to grind those pretty heart-shaped diamond buckles into her foot with his heavy shoe. As he cautiously felt around under the table, he forced a blob of her cooking down his throat, smiling grotesquely. In the next instant, he was reaching for his water glass, draining it in one gulp, and holding it out for more and choking.

  "Not too much pepper, I hope?" the cook inquired with pretended anxiety.

  "No, indeed," he assured her, despite the fact that his tongue felt as though a hive of bees had stung it and he knew he would never get the filthy taste out of his mouth. "Perfectly perfect! Just what I like." As he spoke, he extended his leg under the table until he felt a foot on the other side, then bore down on it with a vengeance.

  Horatio started up in his chair and frowned at him.

  Juliet, of course, would keep her pretty velvet slippers tucked underneath her chair, well beyond the reach of even long-legged Viking giants. Realizing his error, Swale hastily withdrew his foot, saying, "I thought it was no longer the fashion for nice young ladies to meddle in the kitchen. Not ladylike."

  "Not ladylike to cook?" Dr. Gary shook his head, and Swale could tell this was going into the old boy's next sermon. "Too many ladies live lives of vanity and indolence. Not ladylike to cook indeed! My dear Mrs. Cary, did you not make the trifle?"

  "You'
re not eating, my lord," Juliet said with apparent distress. "You don't like my cooking after all. I am excessively sorry I have failed to please you."

  "That's quite enough, Juliet," said Horatio. "The joke has gone too far, my lord. Mary, take that foul concoction away."

  "I see no joke," said Swale coldly, shooing Mary away. He really didn't like the high-handed manner in which this pretty fellow corrected the evil, yet unquestionably magnificent, Juliet, almost as though he owned her. "I will eat every bite of this decidedly non-foul concoction, thank you."

  He grimaced at Juliet as he forced the last of the gruesome stuff down his throat. She watched him in wide-eyed disbelief. "My compliments on your excellent cookery, Miss Wayborn. I have never tasted anything quite like it. Perhaps, one day you will allow me to return the favor and serve you a dish named in your honor? A dish served cold, I think." He snapped his fingers. "I have it! Oysters. Raw oysters served on a block of ice and garnished with lemon. Oysters to match your eyes, Miss Wayborn. Ice to represent the ice in your soul, and lemon reminiscent of your tart personality. I give you ... Oysters a la Juliete."

  The blaze of scorn in her eyes made him smile, but the others at the table were alarmed.

  "What a splendid compliment!" cried Mrs. Gary, who did not wish to see anything else set afire in her dining room. "His lordship means to pay a compliment. Your-your eyes are gray, my dear."

  "Indeed they are," agreed Dr. Cary nervously, for he wanted nothing else broken.

  "And you know you like oysters, Juliet," Cynthia pointed out. "I could never bear the horrid, slimy, squishy things myself-" She broke off as she realized that her remarks were unlikely to promote peace. "But you have always liked them."

  Juliet thoughtfully took a bite of cold asparagus. She had underestimated Swale, she realized. First, his hands, and now, his tongue. She had not supposed him capable of matching wits with her, any more than she would have guessed him capable of easing a sliver of glass from a wounded animal's paw. Several witty rejoinders suggested themselves to her, each icier and more tart than the last, which meant, of course, that she could not use them, not now.